Framing, reframing and the transformation of stance in news translation: a case study of the translation of news on the China–Japan dispute

ABSTRACT

The growing interest in news translation in the last decade has raised issues regarding the nature of news translation itself, leading to a shift away from the traditional concept of equivalence between source text (ST) and target text (TT) to an interest in the role of journalistic conventions in the process. This article examines variation in the stance adopted in translation between Western press reports (in English) and Reference News (Chinese in pinyin: Cancao Xiaoxi) and argues, on the basis of frame analysis of 27 pairs of news reports on the Sino-Japanese territorial dispute, that news translation of controversial issues is a process in which the stance framed in the original news report is reframed for the target culture. Through quantitative and qualitative analysis, this study identifies three prominent types of framing variations—appropriation variation, labeling variation, and ambiguity variation—and examines their respective roles in reframing the stance toward a pro-China and often anti-Japan direction in the translation by Reference News.

新闻翻译研究近十年的发展引起学者们对新闻翻译的本质的探讨。新闻翻译关注的重点不再是原文与译文的对等，而是新闻制作和发布的规范和实际操作在翻译过程中的影响。本文通过研究⟪参考消息⟫中27篇关于中日岛屿之争的中文译文及其英文原文中的立场转变，论证争议性话题的新闻在翻译过程中，为了迎合目的语文化语境，新闻原文构建的立场会被重新构建。结合定性和定量分析, 本文发现立场的转变和重建体现于三种构建差异：选择性采用、标示性构建以及构建的模糊性。本文还阐述了这三种构建差异如何将原文立场重构为亲中和反日的立场。

KEYWORDS:

• News translation
• stance
• frame analysis
• reframing
• the Sino-Japanese dispute

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Xiaoping Wu is a PhD candidate in Department of English, University of Macau. Her research interests include translation studies, media discourse, and intercultural studies.